The Telco Blog

About this blog

We will cover the telecommunications ecosystem composed of service providers, network equipment manufacturers, and mobile. While the originators of the blog are from IBM Rational it will not be limited to that in scope.

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Communications service providers (CSPs) have a history of adopting agile methods in their development of software-intensive products. However, the adoption of these methods, especially when continuous integration is involved, are impeded with old approaches to the deployment of these solutions to test labs and, finally, to the running system. In addition, test labs are expensive to setup and run and their preparation and usage can be restricted and time consuming. As well, the ability to respond in a timely manner to requests from the... [More]

We've posted a few thoughts about quality throughout the design life-cycle for telco providers as well as equipment manufacturers. I like to think of quality as a life-cycle thing, in that testing can be done throughout the development cycle of software whether its service oriented or embedded. Some of the thoughts I've posted can be found in a previous quality post here I wanted to bring your attention to an event we are having April 18th, where you will be given an in-depth look into how Rational approaches quality, particularly in the... [More]

Since there has been many postings in this blog regarding agility, I thought I'd join my voice to Marty's ( here and here ) and Scott ( here ). If you look at the content of the blog, we have already either touched or hinted at agility in various areas of the whole development lifecycle. Agility in idea gathering for the telecom product manager was hinted in Scott's 3 keys to an effective services offering posting. Agility in taking these ideas, determining the best one, and communicating the requirements was addressed in my own Your CSP needs... [More]

In my previous post , I finished with a teaser on how IBM Rational help its CSP clients by providing support for TM Forum Frameworx in its tools. Given that telecom suppliers see unprecedented demand for TM Forum's Frameworx Conformance , support for this framework should be of concern for any solution and tool provider. At Rational, do understand that TM Forum Frameworx, or NGOSS as it used to be called, is an important framework around communications service providers (CSPs). I've heard it stated many times that all major CSPs use eTOM ( E... [More]

Mobile enterprise applications, are typically accessing information on the back end from legacy systems that the business has spent 15 to 20 years integrating together. Many times these systems are being updated in parallel with the development of enterprise mobile apps, which gives rise to the question on how can one effectively test mobile enterprise apps, come integration time? At the end of the day, the sooner we can test our software the better. This leads to reduced defects further along the development and test cycle, which... [More]

Happy New Year! For the first post of the new year I wanted to turn everyone's attention to Rational's premier event Innovate 2013. We are looking for some great submissions in the area of telecommunications
Innovate 2013 : The IBM Technical Summit, which will be held June 2-6, 2013 is destined to be the event for software practitioners and product developers. Attendees will learn to improve the practices, predictability and economics of software delivery through detailed Rational education and insights into key technical trends. ... [More]

For anyone who hasn’t seen it a few days ago IBM released a
press release about a new technology advance that allows light speed connection
between chips in a server farm. This is a large step forward in the technology
of moving data inside data farms. Here is a link to the press release. You also
can find commentary in many other technical sources as well.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/39641.wss
The question is how does this affect the telco industry?
In my view this has a huge affect long term on... [More]

You hear lots about “testing” in all industries, as testing leads to reduced defects, which leads to quality. Automation is even better as it decreases the time testing, which decreases costs, which is expensive as it can consume over 50% of the entire cost of delivering product in some industries. In the case of telcos, this means happy customers that will be repeat customers. Customer churn for service providers is prime concern in the Telco industry on a global level. In my experience, I’ve been involved in testing of a product in... [More]

A recent discussion with one of our System Architect has brought up a very interesting comparison: how telecom networks are really a big SCADA system. For those unfamiliar with the term, SCADA stands for "Supervisory, Control, and Data Acquisition". These systems are common within certain industries such as utilities (e.g., power or water distribution) and plant operations (e.g., power or manufacturing). These systems are put in place so that, from a central location (e.g., a power distribution network's control centre or a plant's... [More]

Every day, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) around the world perform a balancing act between the need for new business initiatives and technology versus the need to contain costs and ensure overall efficiency. With exploding data traffic and the ever mounting pressure to reduce spending, CSPs will be forced to find new and innovate ways to reduce expenditures while improving operational efficiency. However legacy architectures and processes, disparate systems, and outdated applications result in high maintenance costs, leading to... [More]

Have you ever thought about all the technology needed for you to connect to another person? Let's take the case of a mobile call. You use a mobile phone made by a mobile device manufacturer (MDM) to connect to your communications service providers (CSP) using equipment from one of more network equipment manufacturers (NEM). For the call to go through properly, you certainly need to rely on industry standards, and all these companies need to collaborate to ensure that all parts of the network mesh properly to complete the call. In addition,... [More]

We can be pretty picky when it comes to communications services. There are so many options today in the world of mobile and non-mobile services that we can shop around to get the best value for us. Even five years ago, we had a fraction of the options for services as well as devices which made it much easier for communications service providers (CSPs) to keep us satisfied and remain happy customers. However in the age of the empowered consumer, the CSP remains under a great stress to win our business in an ever over crowded market... [More]

Greetings, The folks from IBM Rational focused on the telecom market are launching this new blog and we invite you to join us. We are covering the ecosystem, from Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) and even the mobile device manufacturers. The originators of this blog plan the product solution as well as the go to market activities for the Telecom market. Our intent is not to bore you with product pitches but to give our own views on the market and some insights to why we think the way we do. ... [More]